a study on grammatical metaphor in english business letters = nghiên cứu về ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong thư thương mại tiếng anh

VŨ LỆ HUYỀN A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN ENGLISH BUSINESS LETTERS Nghiên cứu về ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong thư thương mại tiếng Anh M.A... VŨ LỆ HUYỀN A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR

VŨ LỆ HUYỀN

A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN

ENGLISH BUSINESS LETTERS

(Nghiên cứu về ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong thư thương mại tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2011

VŨ LỆ HUYỀN

A STUDY ON GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN

ENGLISH BUSINESS LETTERS

(Nghiên cứu về ẩn dụ ngữ pháp trong thư thương mại tiếng Anh)

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Linguistics Code: 60.22.15

Supervisor: Dr NGUYỄN HUY KỶ

Hanoi, 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ……….i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………ii

ABSTRACT ……… iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS ……… iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ……… vii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES PART A: INTRODUCTION ……… 1

1 Rationale ……… 1

2 Objectives of the study ……… 2

3 Scope of the study ……….3

4 Methods of the study ……….3

5 Design of the study ………3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT ……… 5

CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: OVERVIEW ON

SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR ………5

1.1 Introduction ……….5

1.2 Language and context ………5

1.3 Metafunctions ……….7

1.4 Summary ……… 10

CHAPTER 2: THE NOTION OF GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR …… 11

2.1 Introduction ……… 11

2.2 Definitions of Metaphor ……… 11

2.3 Grammatical metaphor ……….12

2.4 Grammatical metaphor vs Lexical Metaphor ………13

2.5 Classification of Grammatical Metaphor ………15

2.5.1 Ideational Metaphor ……… 15

2.5.2 Interpersonal Metaphor ……… 18

2.5.2.1 Modality metaphors ……….18

2.5.2.2 Mood metaphors ……… 18

2.6 Summary ……… 19

CHAPTER 3: GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN ENGLISH BUSINESS LETTERS ……….21

3.1 Introduction ……… 21

3.2 Definition of Business Letters ……… 22

3.3 Classification of Business Letters ………22

3.4 Characteristics of Business Letters ……… 23

3.4 1 Characteristics of Business Letters in general ……… 23

3.4.2 Characteristics of business letters in terms of field, tenor and mode 24

3.5 The use of Grammatical Metaphor in Business Letters ……… 26

3.5.1 Data analysis framework ……… …26

3.5.2 Results ……… 33

3.5.2.1 Frequency of use of grammatical metaphor ……….33

3.5.2.2 Types of Grammatical metaphor used ……….33

3.5.3 Discussion ……… 35

3 6 Summary ……….36

PART C: CONCLUSION ………37

1 Recapitulation ……….37

2 Implications ………38

3 Limitations of the study ……… 38

4 Suggestions for further studies ………39

REFERENCES ……… 40 APPENDIX 1 ……… I APPENDIX 2……… X

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

SFG: Systemic Functional Grammar

GM: Grammatical Metaphor

ESP: English for Specific Purposes

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

Figure 1: Genre, register and language ………7

Figure 2: Metafunctional Layering ………8

Figure 3: Independence of metafunctions ……… 9

Figure 4: Mapping of components ………12

Figure 5: Two perspectives on metaphor ……… 13

Figure 6: Two perspectives on metaphorical variation ……….15

Figure 7: Direction of metaphorization……… 30

Table 1: Types of grammatical metaphor……… 29

Table 2: Frequency of use of grammatical metaphor in business letters ……… 33

Table 3: Types of grammatical metaphor used in the corpus ……… 35

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Metaphor, based on the association of similarity, is one of the two basic types of semantic transference (metaphor and metonymy) that have been an interest for a great number of linguistic researchers According to Galperin (1981), the term “metaphor” can be understood

as the transference of some quality from one subject to another Halliday gives a more detailed notion, metaphor is a verbal transference; a variation in the expression of meanings which involves a non-literal use of a word In particular, metaphor is an irregularity of content that consists on the use of a word in a sense different from its proper one and related to it in terms of similarity Let‟s see examples (1) and (2)

(1) The sky is crying

(2) The old professor emeritus is a rock that is becoming brittle with age

Following the previous definitions, (1) includes an example of metaphor, i.e “crying” This word is used for something resembling that which it usually refers to, that is, it is used

to refer to the weather state of being raining although it usually refers to the physical and emotional state of being crying Example (2) includes a metaphor, too In this case, the word

“rock” is used in an improper sense, it refers to beings having the quality of being hard and the reason for this transference is the resemblance between the literal and metaphorical references of this term, that is, the resemblance between rocks and hard persons

Metaphor is a very important feature in human language and is always a subject of central interest in the study of stylistics But traditional linguistics has long focused only on lexical metaphor whereas systemic functional linguistics has paid much attention on grammatical metaphor, a term derived from the notion that "the form of the grammar relates naturally to the meanings that are being encoded" (Halliday 1994: xvii)

To be a teacher of ESP of business field, I have found that grammatical metaphor seems to be

a strange notion to our students so I would like to make an investigation into grammatical metaphor in business letters with the hope of bringing this knowledge into my teaching work

English has been widely used in almost every field, particularly in business As a popular means of communication, English is considered a key to success in international business And in this business world, in spite of widespread developments in communication technology, business letters are still widely used in the world as a main channel of business correspondence To achieve desirable results in communicating through business letters, besides taking some remarkable features into account such as: style, language, structure of a business letter, an aspect of the lexicogrammar which involves a higher level of complexity

in the process of production and interpretation of clauses – the use of grammatical metaphor should be paid a great attention, too However, it has not attracted enough research attention

If we have a good knowledge of grammatical metaphor, we can achieve the desired effect when dealing with business letters We may have a better and more thorough understanding of this written type of discourse

A functional analysis of grammatical metaphor in discourse, especially in business letters will be very helpful to benefit English learners in better understanding and employing target language and thus improving the communicative competence more effectively

Those theoretical and practical significances have inspired me to carry out A Study

on Grammatical Metaphor in English Business Letters

2 Objectives of the study

The objectives of this paper are:

(i) to give a general understanding of grammatical metaphor in the light of functional

It is hoped that with these objectives, a full understanding of the use of grammatical metaphor

in business letters will be achieved

Therefore, the research questions raised here are:

1) What is the frequency of the use of grammatical metaphor in English business letters?

2) What types of grammatical metaphor are used in English business letters?

3 Scope of the study

Within the limitation of a minor thesis, this study only attempts to find out grammatical metaphor in the chosen corpus of English business letters The corpus is a collection of 20 authentic real-life English business letters randomly chosen from the eBook titled Instant Business Letters Kit by Shawn Fawcett I think such a corpus is large enough for a M.A minor thesis However, the conclusions are by no means representatives of business letters in all cases

The theoretical framework for the analysis of grammatical metaphor in this paper is mainly based on the systemic functional linguistic theory by M.A.K Halliday, Christian Matthiessen, and James Martin, who are considered as the representatives of systemic functional linguistics After analyzing grammatical metaphor used in the chosen letters, some suggestions for pedagogical implication are also given with the hope of helping ESP students easily approach grammatical metaphor in general and in business letters in particular

4 Methods of the study

The study employs the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods Qualitative method helps the study approach the business letter samples and find out the general features and grammatical metaphor used in these letters After the qualitative analysis, the data is also quantitatively analyzed In the investigation of data, the descriptive method is employed to give a detailed description of grammatical metaphor found in the corpus After the description

of the data, the combination of analytic and synthetic methods will be employed

5 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts:

Part A: Introduction This part introduces the rationale, the objectives, the scope and the methods of the study

Part B: Development This part is divided into three chapters

Chapter 1 deals with the theoretical background of the study An over view of functional grammar is provided with important concepts relevant to the topic framework

Chapter 2 focuses on the notion of metaphor from traditional and new views Then the notion of grammatical metaphor will be clarified Types of grammatical metaphor will be also discussed in this chapter

Chapter 3 is the main part of the study Firstly, some linguistic features of English business letters will be taken into consideration Then the analysis of the corpus in terms of grammatical metaphor and the results of the study will be presented in this chapter

Part C is the conclusion of the study which provides the recapitulation with reference to the methods, the objectives and the findings of the present study Then some implications for ESP teaching and learning at tertiary level are also provided After that it gives some suggestions for further studies basing on the limitations of the thesis

PART B: DEVELOPMENT THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW ON SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

1.1 Introduction

We use language to interact with one another to construct and maintain our interpersonal relations and the social order that lies behind them and in doing so we interpret and represent the world for one another and for ourselves Language is a natural part of the process of living,

it is also used to store the experience built up in the course of that process, both personal and collective It is (among other things) a tool for representing knowledge or to look at this in terms of language itself, for constructing meaning (Matthiessen & Halliday)

From this point of view, Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) w a s developed by Michael Halliday and his colleagues This has been a great contribution to linguistic theory It is different from all the previous models of grammar in that it interprets language as interrelated sets of options for making meaning and seeks to provide a clear relationship between functions and grammatical systems (Halliday, 1994) Our overview on the SFG will focuse on some of the key points (Language and social context, Context of culture, Context of situation, Metafunctions… ) of this theory in the next part

1.2 Language and context

A full understanding of a text is often impossible without reference to the context in which

it occurs And context can be considered from two perspectives: the context of culture and the context of situation The former refers to the broad sociocultural environment, which includes ideology, social conventions and institutions Halliday argues that it is the social context for communication that regulates the way the semantics of language are employed The latter relates to the specific situations within the sociocultural environment (Droga & Humphrey, 2002)

Systemic-Functional Linguistics (SFL) is a theory of language centred around the notion of language function While SFL accounts for the syntactic structure of language, it places the

function of language as central (what language does, and how it does it), in preference to more structural approaches, which place the elements of language and their combinations as central SFL starts at social context, and looks at how language both acts upon, and is constrained by, this social context Knowledge of context (culture and situation) tells us significant information about how language will be used

A central notion is 'stratification', such that language is analyzed in terms of four strata: Context, Semantics, Lexico-Grammar and Phonology

SFL treats language and social context as complementary levels of semiosis, related by the concept of realisation The interpretation of social context then includes two communication factors, genre (context of culture) and register (context of situation) (Martin,1992:495) The context of culture can be thought of as deriving from a vast complex network of all of the genres which make up a particular culture Genres are staged, goal oriented social processes in which people engage as members of the culture

The context of situation of a text has been theorised by Halliday (Halliday and Hasan, 1985:12) in terms of the contextual variables of Field, Tenor and Mode

Field of discourse: refers to what is happening, to the nature of the social action that is taking

place: what is it the participants are engaged in, what is the text about?

Tenor of discourse: refers to who is taking part, to the nature of the participants, their statuses

and roles: what kinds of role relationship obtain among the participants, including permanent and temporary relationships of one kind or another…

Mode of discourse: refers to what part the language is playing, what it is that the participants

are expecting the language to do for them in that situation: the symbolic organization of the text, the status that is has, and its function in the context, including the channel (is it spoken or written or some combination of the two?) and also the rhetorical mode, what is being achieved

by the text in terms of such categories as persuasive, expository, didactic and the like

The summary of the relationship between language and context is displayed in Figure 1 below:

Context of Culture (Register + purpose)

Context of Situation (Register)

Metafunctions (Lexico-Grammar)

Figure 1: Genre, register and language

Martin and Rose (2003: 254)

(1) The ideational/experiential metafunction: It enables people to use language to represent experience, and is influenced by field

(2) The interpersonal metafunction: It enables people to use language to enact social relationships, and is influenced by tenor

(3) The textual metafunction: It enables people to use language to construct logical and coherent texts, and is influenced by mode

Each of the three metafunctions is about a different aspect of the world, and is concerned with

a different mode of meaning of clauses The ideational metafunction is about the natural world

in the broadest sense, including our own consciousness, and is concerned with clauses as

representations The interpersonal metafunction is about the social world, especially the

relationship between speaker and hearer, and is concerned with clauses as exchanges The

textual metafunction is about the verbal world, especially the flow of information in a text, and

is concerned with clauses as messages The ideational metafunction relates to the context of

culture, the interpersonal metafunction relates to the context of situation, and the textual metafunction relates to the verbal context

In each metafunction, an analysis of a clause gives a different kind of structure composed from

a different set of elements In the ideational metafunction, a clause is analysed into Process,

Participants and Circumstances, with different participant types for different process types In

the interpersonal metafunction, a clause is analysed into Mood and Residue, with the mood element further analysed into Subject and Finite In the textual metafunction, a clause is analysed into Theme and Rheme

Figure 2: Metafunctional Layering

(Matthiessen & Bateman, 1991) Figure 2 shows an analysis of the sentence “In this job, Anne, we're working with silver” into three different structures in the three metafunctions This kind of diagram is called a

“metafunctional layering” diagram in SFG

The metafunctional theory is part of the “functional” side of SFG, but it is also important in

the “systemic” side of SFG Each metafunction has a principal system in the networks for

clauses, verbal groups and nominal groups For example the transitivity system is the principal

system for the ideational metafunction in the clause network An important theoretical point is

that in general, in the system networks, the systems within each metafunction are closely

interconnected, but are largely independent of systems in the other metafunctions This is

illustrated in Figure 3

Figure 3: Independence of metafunctions

(Matthiessen and Halliday)

In this network fragment, there are normal dependency relationships within the mood region

of the interpersonal metafunction, between the mood type and indicative type systems and

between the indicative type and interrogative type systems, and there is also a further

interconnection: the tagging system can be entered either from the imperative feature of the mood type system or from the declarative feature of the indicative type system But there are

no interconnections at all between the mood region of the interpersonal metafunction and the trasitivity region of the ideational metafunction

is related to the genres which make up a particular culture Genres are staged, goal oriented social processes in which people engage as members of the culture

The context of situation of a text can be analyzed in terms of the contextual variables of Field, Tenor and Mode These three aspects reflect the three main functions, or metafunctions of language (ideational, interpersonal and textual) which then can be realized through one or more of the lexico-grammatical systems (transitivity, mood or theme) On this linguistic background, a phenomenon occurs It is called grammatical metaphor, which is introduced by Halliday Further discussion on this phenomenon can be found in the next section

CHAPTER 2: THE NOTION OF GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR

2.1 Introduction

As we know metaphor is a very important feature in human language There is no exaggeration when we say that language itself is a metaphor So metaphor is one of the most popular and widespread figures of speech with a great variety of definitions given This chapter will deal with the discussion on metaphor, the two levels of metaphor: lexical and grammatical metaphors And of course further discussion and focus will be put on grammatical metaphor

2.2 Definitions of Metaphor

We now start with the definitions of metaphors Aristotle is considered to be the first one that builds a theory of metaphor He defines metaphor as a “transfer of a name belonging elsewhere” (cited in Michiel Leezenberg, 2001:33) However, this definition is merely at the level of words

Two cognitive linguists who have had a great contribution to the study on metaphor are Lakoff and Johnson with a very well-known book “Metaphor We live By” In this book, they defined metaphor as a process by which we conceive “one thing in terms of another, and its primary function is understanding” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980: 36) They have also revealed that metaphors are not just found in poetic or literary language, but also play an important role in colloquial language and everyday use

A simplified definition is that metaphor is a “mapping of the structure of a source model onto

a target model” (Ungerer and Schmid 1999: 120) Metaphor is also defined in “A Handbook of Literature” by William Harmon and Hugh Homan (1996) as “an analogy identifying one object with another and ascribing to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second”

In this definition, metaphor is viewed as the process of expressing one thing through another due to the similarities of two objects

We can see that, most of the definitions discussed so far pay much attention to the metaphorical movement at lexical level, the changes happen to words, and this is called lexical metaphor

Michael Halliday, one of the representatives for Systemic Functional Linguistics, suggests that metaphor does not necessarily happen at the lexical level but often at the grammatical level, which is called grammatical metaphor And this interesting linguistic phenomenon will be discussed thoroughly in the next session

2.3 Grammatical Metaphor

Grammatical metaphor is one of the most interesting theoretical notions developed by Halliday (1985/1994) within systemic-functional Grammar In this research paradigm, language is regarded as a semiotic system which comprises four different strata (context, semantics, lexicogrammar, and phonology) related to each other by means of subsequent realizations Each realization involves making meaningful choices within the different systems which make up each stratum Thus, semantics is realized through the lexicogrammar, which is

in turn realized phonologically With this general framework, grammatical metaphor may be defined Broadly speaking, a variation in the grammatical forms through which a semantic choices typically realized in the lexicogrammar At each of these two strata, there exist different components which can map onto each other in one way or another, as shown in the following figure (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999)

Semantic stratum sequence figure element

Lexicogrammar stratum clause complex clause participant

Figure 4 : Mapping of components

In the figure, the solid lines indicate the usual mapping between the components in the two strata The discourse thus results is referred to as the “congruent” form (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999: 227) The dotted lines, on the other hand, indicate the unusual mapping between the components and the resulting discourse is referred to as the “metaphorical” form

In other words, when a sequence is mapped onto, and thus realized as, a clause complex, a figure mapped onto and realized as a clause, an element mapped onto and realized as a

participant, the resulting clause complex, clause or participant is congruent However, when a sequence is mapped onto and realized as a clause or even an element, a figure is mapped onto and realized as a participant, and an element is mapped onto a participant other than the usual one, the resulting clause or participant is metaphorical

2.4 Grammatical metaphor vs Lexical Metaphor

Halliday (1985) suggests that metaphor does not necessarily happen at the lexical level but often at the grammatical level, which is called grammatical metaphor “We are looking at metaphor not „from below‟, as variation in the meaning of a given expression, but rather

„from above‟, as variation in the expression of a given meaning” (1994: 342)

Halliday considered grammatical metaphor as a phenomenon “beyond the clause” Metaphor can be viewed from two different perspectives: traditional and new Traditionally, metaphor is viewed as variation in the use of words, i.e variation in meaning: “a word is said to be used with a transferred meaning” (Halliday: 1985) In this sense, a lexeme with a certain literal meaning can have metaphorical, transferred uses or meanings This is called a view “from below”, taking the words as starting point, and then saying something about the meaning these words realize The other perspective introduced by Halliday is one “from above” In this point

of view, the starting point is a meaning and metaphor is defined as “variation in the expression

of meanings” These two perspectives can be seen clearly in Figure 5 below

seen “from below” seen „from above‟

literally metaphorically „many people (protested)‟

„a moving mass „a moving mass of feeling

Taking the view „from above‟, it is recognized that “lexical selection is just one aspect of lexicogrammatical selection, or „wording‟; and that metaphorical variation is lexicogrammatical rather than simply lexical” (Halliday, 1994) This brings Halliday to grammatical metaphor: There is a strong grammatical element in rhetorical transference; and one we have recognized this we find that there is also such a thing as grammatical metaphor, where the variation is essentially in the grammatical forms although often entailing some lexical variation as well (ibid)

In the area of grammatical metaphor, Halliday claims that the term „literal‟ is no longer appropriate The variation between the different expressions of the same meaning is defined in terms of markedness: a certain forms can be recognized as unmarked expressions of the given meaning, conforming to the „typical ways of saying things‟ – these forms are the non-metaphorical variants, which are called „congruent‟ realizations

It is useful to point out some general aspects of the shift in the perspective: from a focus on lexical variation (traditional view) to a focus on grammatical variation (new view)

The recognition of grammatical metaphor is a consequence of the „view from above‟ According to Halliday, the main feature of the view „from above‟ is that it defines metaphor as variation in the expression of a given meaning, rather than variation in the meaning of a given expression The main differences between the two perspectives can be summarized in Figure 5

Traditional view: ‘from below’ New view: from above

focus on lexical metaphor focus on grammatical metaphor

metaphor as variation in the meaning of a

given expression

metaphor as variation in the expression of a given meaning

comparison of the meaning of one lexeme

(in different collocational contexts)

comparison of various grammatical configurations as expressions of the same meaning

literal versus metaphorical meanings of a

given lexeme

degrees of (in)congruency: congruent and less congruent expression of a given meaning

the concept of realization is not used in the

traditional view on metaphor

the feature of congruency applies to realizations of the same meaning

Figure 6 Two perspectives on metaphorical variation

2.5 Classification of Grammatical Metaphor

Halliday makes a distinction between two main types of grammatical metaphor: There are two main types of grammatical metaphor in the clause: metaphors of mood (including modality) and metaphor of transitivity In terms of the model of semantic functions, there are respectively, interpersonal metaphors and ideational metaphors (Halliday, 1994:343) Some

details of these two types will be discussed in the next part

2.5.1 Ideational Grammatical Metaphors

Ideational Grammatical Metaphors are called metaphor of transitivity The grammatical variation between congruent and incongruent forms here applies to transitivity configurations, and can be analyzed in terms of the functional structure of these configurations (Miriam Taverniers, 2002) In other words, the ideational function, with which we are concerned here,

is closely tied to the transitivity system, which enables us to construe the world of our experience into a limited set of process types (material, mental, relational, behavioural, verbal, and existential) Processes are realized as a configuration of transitivity functions which represent the process, the participants in the situation, the attributes assigned to participants, and the circumstances associated with the process Processes are typically realized by verbal groups; participants (Actor, Senser, Phenomenon, Carrier, etc.) are usually worded as nominal groups; participants‟ attributes are represented by adjectives; and circumstances (of time, place, manner, etc.) are generally associated with the process Processes are typically realized by verbal groups; participants (Actor, Senser, Phenomenon, Carrier, etc.) are usually worded as nominal groups; participants‟ attributes are represented by adjectives; and circumstances (of time, place, manner, etc.) are generally associated with adverbial groups or prepositional phrases These are typical patterns of lexicogrammatical realization (what Halliday calls congruent forms),

but other less typical encodings are also potentially available to the language user (i.e metaphorical forms) By way of illustration, consider these two examples

(a) We walked in the evening along the river to Henley

(b) Our evening walk along the river took us to Henley

It may be easily observed that both clauses (a) and (b) allow us to describe the same situation However, the process constituents in (a) have been realized in a congruent fashion, whereas (b) evidences a preference for metaphorical modes of expression Thus, the material Process walk, realized by a verb in (a), is encoded in (b) as a participant (Actor) which attains lexical expression by means of a noun The two circumstantial elements of time (in the evening) and place (along the river) become in (b) respectively, a classifier and a qualifier of the new Actor; the circumstance of time is now realized as a noun, whereas the place element remains a prepositional phrase (although at a different rank within the clause) The Actor of (a) is split into two parts; the first part functions as a possessor of the entity (our evening walk along the river), the other as Affected (us) of a new material process expressed by the verb took Halliday (1994: 346) argues that a combined analysis should match the constituents of the congruent and metaphorical versions as much as possible so that it may be easier to grasp contrasts in grammatical function; this may also help us to show the simultaneous occurrence

of lexical metaphor and, most importantly, to draw justified conclusions as to the possible functional motivation for the choice of a metaphorical variant:

circumstance:

Place prep.phrase

process:

Material verbal group

participant:

Senser

n.group

process Mental perception verbal group

participant Phenomenon n.group

circumstance Place

prep.phrase

It is possible to indicate a “chain of metaphorical interpretations” (Halliday, 1994) as steps in between the metaphorical form under analysis and a completely congruent expression An illustration of such a chain (a-e) is given by Halliday in the following: (of which (e) is the most congruent form)

a Advances in technology are speeding up the writing of business programs

b Advances in technology are making the writing of business programs faster

c Advances in technology are enabling people to write business programs faster

d Because technology is advancing, people are able to write business programs faster

e Because technology is getting better, people are able to write business programs faster

A number of aspects are mentioned about the distribution of transitivity metaphors Ideational metaphors are found in all types of adult discourse However, complete congruency and complete incongruency are rare: “It seems that, in most types of discourse, both spoken and written, we tend to operate somewhere in between these two extremes Something which is totally congruent is likely to sound a bit flat; whereas the totally incongruent often seems artificial and contrived.” (Halliday, 1985: 349)

In general, it is argued that written language has more ideational metaphors than spoken discourse This is attributed to a more general difference in types of complexity: written language is said to be “lexical dense”, whereas spoken language is “grammatically intricate”

In written language, various lexical meaning are often “packed” into one single nominal group This is the environment in which ideational metaphor occurs

It is also needed to mention here the occurrence of demetaphorization: grammatical metaphors gradually lose their metaphorical nature, and become “domesticated” Halliday gives three types of what he considers as “domesticated” transitivity metaphors in English:

(1) Expressions such as: have a bath, do a dance, make a mistake… In these forms, the

meaning of the process is expressed by the Range rather than the verb

(2) Examples such as: She has brown eyes (which has congruent form as her eyes are

brown) or he has a broken wrist (congruent: his wrist is broken)

(3) Expressions such as: he writes good books (congruent: he writes books, which are

good) or we sell bargains (congruent: the thing we sell are cheap)

2.5.2 Interpersonal Grammatical Metaphors

Two types of interpersonal grammatical metaphors can be distinguished as metaphors of mood and of modality

2.5.2.1 Modality metaphors

The grammatical variation which occurs is based on the logico-semantic relationship of

projection In other words, projection is involved when modality is expressed metaphorically

The projecting clause involved usually has a word or proposition which signifies belief, likelihood, certainty, or other features which one connects with modality

1 a I think it‟s going to rain

b Congruent: It is probably going to rain

2 a He doesn’t believe it can be proved by statistics

 b Congruent: It probably can‟t be proved by statistics

Speakers can express their opinions in separate clauses in various ways:

It is obvious that …

Everyone admits that …

The conclusion can hardly be avoided that…

Common sense determines that…

You can’t seriously doubt that…

However, “It is not always possible to say exactly what is and what is not a metaphorical representation of modality” (Halliday, 1985a: 334) due to the great diversity in expressions of modal meanings The features of metaphorical expressions can be identified as following:

(1) The proposition is expressed in the projected clause, rather than the projecting one This is shown by the fact that the tag represents the projected clause, as in I think it‟s going to rain, isn‟t it (not: don‟t I?)

(2) When the proposition is negative, the negation can either be expressed in the proposition itself, or in the projecting clause:

3 a I think Jane doesn’t know

b I don’t think Jane knows

2.5.2.2 Mood metaphors

In order to understand the notion of interpersonal metaphors of mood, it is necessary to consider what the default types of encoding are In terms of mood, Halliday distinguished three major types of interactive functions: statements are expressions which gives information, questions are expressions which ask for information, and commands are expressions which ask for something to take place Each of these functions has its standard, default type of encoding: statements are encoded by declarative, questions by interrogative, and commands

statement question command

down! I wonder where you have been You should tell me the truth

interrogative Have I ever let you

down? Where have you been? Could you tell me the truth?

never let you down!

Tell me where you have been!

Tell me the truth!

It is also not easy to decide whether a given expression should be interpreted as a mood metaphor because of the diversity of possible expressions of mood meanings

2.6 Summary

This chapter has focused mainly on the notion of grammatical metaphor within the framework

of systemic functional grammar To master the notion of grammatical metaphor, the notion of lexical metaphor, which is traditionally known, has been also discussed As we can see in this chapter, grammatical metaphor can be explained in relation to lexical metaphor It is recognized that lexical selection is just one aspect of lexicogrammatical selection, or

„wording‟; and that metaphorical variation is lexicogrammatical rather than simply lexical In

other words, lexical metaphor is just one aspect of grammatical metaphor and they are not two different phenomena Grammatical metaphor can be regarded as a principle in which meanings may be cross-coded, phenomena represented by categories other than those that evolved to represent them (Halliday, 1994) Or grammatical metaphor is a lexicogrammatical phenomenon which first involves the transcategorization of various elements in a clause, and second is a mapping of the semantic and lexicogrammatical components in a way which deviates from the usual one (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999) And the two types of realization relationship between grammar and semantics are referred to as congruent (or non-metaphorical) and incongruent (or metaphorical) Grammatical metaphor can be classified into ideational and interpersonal metaphor The latter can be further classified into interpersonal modality metaphor and interpersonal mood metaphor

In the next chapter, we will explore how grammatical metaphor occurs in English business letters through the analysis of the corpus in terms of grammatical metaphor

CHAPTER 3: GRAMMATICAL METAPHOR IN ENGLISH

BUSINESS LETTERS

3.1 Introduction

Due to the profound political and economic changes in the world, the commercial relations of different nations have noticeably increased and English language is now considered by many nations as an international language According to Strevens (1987: 56) "English is used by more people than any other language on the earth, although its mother-tongue speakers make

up only a quarter or a fifth of the total." Today more and more people use English as a national, second, or foreign language, or as a language for commerce, industry, science, and other purposes

To be involved in the world business, there is always a need for an internationally accepted language English is used in global business for transactions in goods and services, technical specifications, financial reports, and other purposes among non-native and native speakers throughout the world In spite of widespread developments in communication technology, business letters are still widely used in the world as a main channel of business correspondence A cheque, a contract or any other business paper sent by mail should always

be accompanied by a letter The letter says what is being sent so that the recipient should know exactly what you intended to send Business letters are written not only to inform but also to persuade the addressee about certain business issues and concerns However, to achieve desirable results in communicating through business letters, the communicators should deal with two major functions of language termed by Brown and Yule (1983) as "interactional and transactional functions" It means that a business letter, in addition to being thoroughly considered from the semantic and syntactic viewpoints, should also be acceptable in respect to sociocultural aspects Writing for a business audience is usually quite different than writing in the humanities, social sciences, or other academic disciplines When you write a business document, you must assume that your audience has limited time in which to read it and is likely to skim Your readers have an interest in what you say insofar as it affects their working world They want to know the "bottom line": the point you are making about a situation or

problem and how they should respond (Freeman, 1997) Poe also states “A good business letter is one that obtains the results the writers hoped for” (Poe, 1988: 3)

In the following section, some discussion on business letters will be dealt with

3.2 Definition of Business Letters

We will start with the definition of a business letter There are many ways to define a business letter; however, we consider the following ones most suitable to the context of the present study: According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, a letter is a written message addressed to a person or an organization, usually in an envelope and is sent by post Business refers to the exchange of goods or services for the reason of money or other goods So a business letter is a letter dealing with business, used in the negotiation of trade conditions in national or international business, concerning the quality of specified goods, specifications, quantity, price, shipment, insurance, payment, disagreement, claim, etc The other definition

by Jacky Gamble eHow contributor (definition.html), business letters are formal letters used for business-to-business, business-to-client, or client-to-business correspondence These two definitions share some common features In general, business letters refer to business transactions With the combination of these two definitions, we will have a general understanding a business letter Communication

http://www.ehow.com/facts_5024015_business-letters-in bushttp://www.ehow.com/facts_5024015_business-letters-iness is of great importance for the smooth development of the http://www.ehow.com/facts_5024015_business-letters-international trade And business letters are very frequently used means in today's business communication by business firms to keep in touch with their customers

3.3 Classification of Business English letters

Business is very complicated transaction involving series of different procedures Stewart (1984) classified business letters as follows:

1) Classification according to the content of the letter The following types of letter are among the most frequent in use: request letters, letters answering requests, claim and adjustment letters, credit and collection letters, sales letters, employment letters and social business letters, etc

2) Classification according to the different functions in the process of a business trade Business letters may be used in every part of business activities There are letters for

establishment of business relations, letters for the enquiry of business They are quotation letters, negotiating letters, ordering letters, confirming order letters, payment letters, shipment and insurance letters, acknowledging goods receipt letters, claim letters and adjustment letters, etc

3) Classification according to the nature of the information given Stewart summed up four different kinds of information according to its effect on the reader's demands: good news, neutral news, bad news and persuasion Accordingly, there are good-news letters, neutral-news letters, bad-news letters and persuasive letters Good-news letters and neutral-news letters are together called everyday letters

3.4 Characteristics of Business Letters

3.4 1 Characteristics of Business Letters in general

Business letter communication is important since not all businessmen have the chance or time

to have a face-to-face negotiation In reality, most of the deals are achieved or supported by letter communication A well-written business letter promotes the trade as well as good friendship Therefore, certain principles are needed for guiding business letter writing A good business correspondence is brief, friendly, tactful, and courteous We should be well aware that our readers have a variety of communication assignments in their daily life, regardless of the size or complexity The number of business message increases everyday All this challenges readers' attention, therefore, business letters have to be livelier, easier to read, more concise, and more interesting

The followings are some of the important characteristics of a business letter

Scientific Expression must be of great consideration Scientific expression means something

said directly and briefly A good composition is essential for a business letter To that end, a letter must be written clearly Clarity in writing letters is of particular importance because many people have a lot of letters to deal with and they cannot waste their time trying to interpret the meaning of the composition A letter written clearly in simple language conveys

the meaning immediately to the reader

Any business letter must be short The significance of a short letter is that the person reading

the letter must understand the significance of the letter in the minimum possible lines This is

usually done in order to save time and energy of the receiver of the letter A letter written in brief and concise form contains only essential information It must not be overweight with irrelevant and superfluous details One must use as few words as possible but the composition must not be abrupt and vague In the busy world of trade and commerce, people do not have much time in the midst of feverish activities Thus, a wordy and circumlocutory letter irritates

the reader rather than pleasing him/her

The tone of the letter is another very important aspect of the letter The letter must sound

polite, courteous and firm The letter should also sound convincing and must have a polite tone

Accuracy is important in a business letter Whatever you communicate in a letter must be

accurate The facts mentioned by you must be true and genuine The writer must employ a suitable style and correct format Rules of grammar and style must be followed Correct construction of sentences and punctuation are essential in a business letter

Association of ideas is also crucial The ideas and facts mentioned in the letter must be

interlinked It must be well-planned so that the reader is able to understand it easily The writer must deal with various facts one by one He must prepare a diagram in his mind and work upon it Coherence in writing makes it interesting and affects the reader positively Therefore, association of interconnection of ideas is a plus point in good business communication There must be proper paragraph divisions in a letter Each distinct point must be expressed in a separate paragraph

Politeness and optimism are the ‘passwords’ in the business world Business letters must be

conducted in a polite tone Courtesy costs nothing but pays rich dividends Politeness wins sympathy, respect and mutual understanding Everybody likes to be addresses pleasantly, so it must be heeded 'Please', 'we appreciate', 'thanks', 'I am sorry', 'may we', etc., are certain words that convey politeness or courtesy and these induce the reader to respond to the writer in a similar manner

3.4.2 Characteristics of business letters in terms of field, tenor and mode

(i) Field

There is no denying the fact that we cam easily recognize a business communication situation We are subconsciously aware of the nature of the social activity and expect the participants to behave in a certain way Thus what people actually do in such situations determines the field of business letters

Nowadays, the business world is busily running Everyday, the businessmen will handle a lot of telephone calls and dozens of transactions Although they are busy in managing everything, they should acknowledge that they would be rather careful and considerate with their customers Otherwise, their mistake or careless fault will possibly result in failure or great loss in their business Therefore, they should always keep their subject in mind What they will do to deal with the signing of the contract? Is it appropriate to write a letter in this way? Is it economical to handle the business in this way? How can I remain the good and long-standing relationship with my customers? Is my bid tender competitive compared with the other bidders? The businessmen take all these factors into consideration and then decide how to manage them These factors, as a result, form the field of a business letter The field of

a business letter is to obtain complete understanding between the parties involved, and elicit the response required The first objective can be achieved through clarity of expression; the second demands the right approach This means that the businessmen should be courteous, honest, tactful and genuinely interested in promoting a mutually beneficial business arrangement, taking into account their customers requirements, level of understanding, and probable reaction to the information

(ii) Tenor

The tenor of business letters relates to the role relationship between participants in such situations The social roles have already been observed and very well defined Now, for instance, considering the ultimate purpose of the shopkeeper or producer, there is a lot of persuasion, be it gentle or other, to effect a transaction People are in business to make money and not to waste time A cordial, cooperative tone in correspondence can do much to establish satisfactory relations, and such relations are important in business

Such considerations in the tenor of business letters are necessary as business communication may include other acts in addition to the acts of buying and selling Promoting

goodwill, complaining, apologizing, accepting, rejecting, claiming, demanding and many other acts are part and parcel of some business communication situations Such acts assume special significance when we consider differences in the mode of discourse, i.e in written business communication there are already well-established sub-varieties such as letters of complaint, letters of application, letters of adjustments, etc

(iii) Mode

As this thesis focuses on the written business letters, the transmission channel is through the written communication On the other hand, mode deals with the cohesion and textual structure of the written work

On the lexical level, clarity is the first requirement of an effective letter To accomplish this goal, the diction should be short, familiar, and concrete

On the syntactic level, a sentence is the basic unit of language containing a subject, a verb

or verb phrase and a complement In business letters, in order to achieve clarity and completeness, the sentence should be short and complete One sentence is stated for one topic Try to avoid the long and complicated sentence and the use of sentence fragments

On the textual level, since a busy businessman will often select the shortest and simplest letters in front of him to answer first, it is not difficult to appreciate the value of clarity and brevity in a business letter Therefore, one should at least try to be concise and to control the length of a letter As a result, short paragraphs are preferable Each paragraph should be planned logically with on paragraph for one topic Furthermore, the tone of the letter should be noted, which will be represented at the beginning of salutation and at the end of closing

An analysis of business letters in terms of grammatical metaphor, one of useful tools for a business letter to create its characteristics, will be presented then to see how this lexicogrammatical phenomenon is used in this type of discourse

3.5 The use of Grammatical Metaphor in Business Letters

3.5.1 Data analysis framework

The corpus is a collection of 20 authentic real-life English business letters randomly chosen from the eBook titled Instant Business Letters Kit by Shawn Fawcett The samples are letters

of various types such as: contract, appreciation, complaint, inquiry, demand, introduction,

apology, rejection, acceptance, request, cover, etc… They are put into two groups Group 1 contains the letters from business organization to client Group 2 includes ones from client to business organization They are then analyzed in terms of grammatical metaphor in detail The examples below, taken from the corpus of the present study, will illustrate the instances

of mapping and realization discussed in chapter II The metaphorical expressions in the examples were taken from the corpus of business letters used in the present study and the congruent expressions were provided by the author of this paper (The author is aware of the fact that the metaphorical expression could be rewritten into its congruent form in more than one possible ways for each metaphorical expression, “there will be a number of different agnate expressions corresponding to it” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 1999, 230)

Example 1:

Metaphorical: I would like to express my thanks to you

Congruent: I would like to thank you

In the congruent expression, the figure of doing – thank somebody – is realized by a clause with a verbal process – thank However, in the metaphorical expression, the same figure of doing is realized not as a verbal process, but as a nominal group (thanks) plus an added verb (express) and a possessive deictic (my)

Example 2:

Metaphorical: Your cooperation is appreciated

Congruent: The way you cooperate is appreciated

The sequence is realized congruently as a hypotactic clause complex while it is realized metaphorically as a clause involving the instances of grammatical metaphor – the realization

of the process (cooperate) as a nominal group (cooperation) and the change of the pronoun

„you‟ into a possessive deictic (your)

Halliday & Mathiessen suggested a detailed description of the metaphorical types The classification is based on metaphoric shifts from one elemental class to another Each type is treated as a phenomenon on its own The analysis of the corpus will be based on this description of the metaphorical types We use it as a guideline to examine metaphorical